Moving to US - tough decision

When you decide to move to a foreign soil, its a pretty tough decision, takes days/months to finalize. Same was with me, Consent from my family, my in-laws. Many questions came up

• How will we cope there
• Do we get our country food there
• How good are people there
• Do we get servants there
• How cold is the place where you are moving
• How long are you going there
• Do you have friends there
• How about Doctors

The very fact that i have been to US twice helped me a lot in answering all these questions... Btw - i am not answering any of this questions, in general i feel you need to be mentally stable and confident, confident of your abilities to survive in the one of the worst/hostile conditions and able to cope up with the pressure of doing things alone rather than depending on other people for help. In my case living a hostel life in BITS, Pilani away from my family actually helped, boosted me.

US is good specially if you plan to have an individual family life more focused on your work and life than getting into the trap of the social obligations as in India. One of the very reasons of moving here
- you can have a nice life, enjoy a lot
- live a luxury life with same amount of salary as compared to India
- if you like new luxurious cars, there are plenty of them here and that too cheaper as compared to India
- Driving is Pleasure here unlike India where it can be toture many a times.
- nice infrastructure
- lots of greenery, clean air
- Things are structured here

Actually coming from a unstructured world to a structured place helps a lot and i think its easier to adapt than vice versa, so am grateful to my home country for that. After driving in India, i do not have any issues about driving here. No tension - just follow the rules, be in the speed limits and remember its always the RIGHT side
More will be added soon....

Marriage Certificate in Bangalore (Hindu)

Hindu Marriage certificate in Bangalore is pretty easy

• It does not matter if you got married in Bangalore or not [ i was married in Chennai ]
• I think you should have been married for more than an year
• You do not need any witness to be around you when going to the office, just need signs which no one checks/cares about
• Address proof - in my case BSNL landline worked.
• Id proof for both of you
• Wedding Card
• One PostCard size photo, front facing for both of you { if you have one with the garland that's the best }
• 2B photos of both of you - 3 copies [ basically this are two passport size photos combined into one
• 2 filled forms back to back: http://www.karunadu.gov.in/karigr/actsrules/otheracts/hindumarrforms.pdf
• Find out nearest SubRegistrar office in your area which deals with your address, Make sure to make go there twice
• First for making sure all the documents you have noted up are good, any changes
• 2nd time go with your wife, process takes around an hour, it may be done in 30 mins if there is no crowd in the office
• They may ask for a bribe ranging from 100 to 500, do not get into that, let the process complete and then handover Rs 100, i think the fee is Rs 20 or something. [ sadly i had to pay 500 Rs, but the joy of getting marriage certificate in 30 mins was pretty big than mere loss of 500 bucks ]
• At the end they will make you proof read for any corrections and hand over two copies of original Marriage Certificate.
• You are happily legally married  now, CONGRATS, now there is no way to retreat back :P

 --you can read further here --

Basically find out the sub-registrar office nearby or addressing your place.
This will be a 2 step process. First time go to that office and tell them that you would like to make a marriage certificate, This will give you a form + ask for documents., it will also have some place for adding 3 witnesses, But you do not need to worry about that, tell them you are a married for more than a year. In my case the sub-registrar office was in Gangangar (5th main street). Write any 3 names on the form, get the documents, go to sub registrar office and you should get your certificate in 1-2 hour.

--Good reads with similar info as above--
This might be good read: http://www.rtiindia.org/forum/83413-what-procedure-register-marriage-online-bangalore.html#axzz28ADaVw69

link: http://www.karunadu.gov.in/karigr/faq/registrationofmarriage.htm#5
forms: http://www.karunadu.gov.in/karigr/actsrules/otheracts/hindumarrforms.pdf

http://vibez.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/how-to-register-your-marriage-in-bangalore/
http://ritzsri.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/how-to-register-marriage-in-bangalore/

Best luck and let me know how it works out. Congrats on getting legally married.

Places to go in Bangalore: Manak Mewa, Chickpet

Manak Mewa is famous for its dryfruits and everything that's related to dry fruits. Its a pretty small shop in a very crowded street.

--Pros--

• Best rates across bangalore
• Best quality
• You can try freely, taste and then choose to buy
• staff is pretty helpful and are open to giving customers for trial
• Dry Fruit chocolates are awesome, whenever i go there i make sure to at-least try a new one every time

--Cons--

• located in Chickpet, highly crowded
• Only accepts CASH, get your ATM card if you do not want to take lots of CASH, they will help you find an ATM machine
• Parking is a pain, if you are on a 2 wheeler its fine to manage
• if you are a 4 wheeler - God will only help you or the Traffic Police [ Khuda hi maalik hai :-) ]

Address
19, Huriopet, 27th Cross R T Street ,Chickpet, Bangalore, Karnataka - 560053

+91 80 2314 3054

+91 80 2225 1012 

Auto Insurance for a Newbie in United Stats (US)

Its hard to understand the so many types of components that are part of Auto Insurance especially when you move from a foreign land to USA.

This link helped me a lot in this regard: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/buying-selling/car-insurance.htm

Getting Quotes:

1] Online quotes are always very High, so do not book your insurance using it.

2] Call the customer care of the insurance companies and work with them
-- Working with the local agent of the company you selected may further reduce it, try to do some bargain, see if you can tell that other company X is giving me a quote with similar components at lesser price.

3] Try to tell them about your education/driving license period in the foreign land you have been

4] If you are 26+ by age and have 2+ years of driving with no bad record it helps

-- Btw - its hard for insurance companies to get your driving history from the foreign nation ( especially India ), so feel free to say i had no tickets, no bad driving. 

5] Try all insurance companies before booking one. All are good

6] Check if you can cancel/terminate them any time

7] I went with Mercury ( they offered me the best deal )

Below are the details for me.

• Bodily Injury Liability - has to be always is 6 digits, this will save if you get into accident and make the other party badly injured. { remember cost of Medical expenses are pretty high in US, so best to have a good amount here } 
• Property Damage Liability - if you get into an accident with BMW or a Porsche
• Comprehensive: i took it in case of theft or some bad nature's effect

I did not went with Collision because i bought a used car for pretty cheap price, so if something happens to it during the accident, its fine to me in terms of repair.

Again below is not the best you can get, you may even get better, but please make sure you get 100/300/50  for Insured accident and Uninsured accident too

Also make sure:

You have towing coverage in terms of emergency. ( mine includes that too in a radius of 15 miles)

Total Premium Including Fees:   $518.80

Policy Period: 12 months.

Coverage	Limit
Bodily Injury Liability	$100,000/person, $300,000/occurrence
Property Damage Liability	$50,000
Uninsured Motorist Bodily Injury	$100,000/person, $300,000/occurrence
Uninsured Motorist Property Damage	$3,500
Comprehensive	$100 Deductible